Reply to comment

After I took Anthropology of Gender last semester I was left wondering about dynamics between gender and science, biology specifically. The beginning of this course was a fascinating next step of learning for me and I found our readings and discussions to exactly what I wanted to read and discuss. Apart from the topics of the class, the structure has been different than any other classes that I have taken. I like having the opportunity to share my thoughts online and to be able to read what other people have to say. Because it is hard to read everyone’s posts I like that certain reoccurring or challenging ideas that have appeared in the posts are grouped together and read out loud in class.  It is also convenient having all the course notes and discussion notes online to refer to.   

 I have never had a course that was so publically online but I think it is a great idea and I think more courses should have their learning process be as open as this one. It has definitely made re consider how I write papers and I would like to be more creative in other classes and see the reaction of those professors. What I have learned so far from this course is to keep an open mind and to constantly challenge what you take for granted. How I think of myself and my relationship to the world around me has also changed and I am much more interested in finding the similarities in life rather than concentrating on differences.

For the future I would be nice if we could break into smaller groups for discussion and then report back to the whole group because it is hard with such a large group to have everyone speak and it would be nice to hear what other people have to say in a setting that might not be as intimidating as the whole class. I think it is sometimes hard to talk in class because I need some time to digest these new ideas and ways of thinking. It can also be frustrating when we are constantly collectively defining, and redefining ideas ( I am thinking of our definition of information for example) and I don’t feel like we have come to an agreement we have just complicated the idea.

A film that I think would be great to watch in this course is called Daisies and is the most well known film by the director that I was for the panel discussion, Vera Chytilova. This film challenges our idea of narrative and of movie watching. It has and can be read in different ways tying into our discussion of information. I would be interested to discuss how much of this film is data and how much is information. It also ties together our discussions of the portrayal of gender and how it can be constructed/ deconstructed. This film could be used to discuss any of the topics we have discusses already and lead us in new directions by bringing them all together.